Joe O'Toole (Independent)

With the permission of the House and in order to get in as many speakers as possible, I would like to share my time with Senator Norris. I promise I will sit down as soon as the Chair indicates the two and a half minutes are over. Since it was a few minutes after 5 o'clock when we started, there should be a little tolerance at the other end.

I concur with much that has been said. I welcome the Taoiseach and affirm the work of Senator Maurice Hayes. The work being done by all sides has to be acknowledged. I want to make two simple points, one macro and one micro. The micro point derives from our extraordinary and impossible cultural legacy of animosity, hatred and division which seem to be endemic in this island but which other countries have left behind. I look with envy at Europe and see countries whose peoples were killing each other by the thousands half a century ago and can now sit around the table, do business and share political power and authority. We have never managed to do this as a State. This is because of all of us. It is not Unionists, republicans, Nationalists, Catholics or Protestants; it just seems to be endemic. I have the pessimistic view that it will take generations for us to work through that. It is essential that we do.